Milwaukee County fire departments looking to make a healthcare change

A number of Milwaukee County fire departments are looking to change the way they do business.

The Greenfield fire department is leading the way on this and they said there's a more efficient way to provide their medical services that could cost patients and hospitals less.

Greenfield is one of five departments involved that want to offer mobile healthcare alternatives to people just going to the hospital or signing a waiver to not go at all.

Some options include public education and outreach, finding ways to help people who over use emergency room care, partnering with hospice, and making home visits instead of readmitting people recently discharged from the hospital.

The Green Bay fire fighters union recently lost a fight against a city initiative requiring firefighters to make house calls on discharged hospital patients, but Greenfield fire Chief John Cohn said Green Bay was only looking at a small part of the bigger mobile healthcare picture.

Chief Cohn said they'll start rolling out the public outreach part of their plan in March, but he added overall that this is a constantly evolving idea they're trying to work out.